


Inheritance

by Delphi



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Dark, Emotional Manipulation, Incest, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-10-31
Updated: 2005-10-31
Packaged: 2017-10-04 11:51:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Delphi/pseuds/Delphi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Severus is willing to do whatever it takes to get what he wants.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inheritance

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Pornish Pixies community on LJ. Challenge: _Incest_

It was said that the Emperor Augustus, when he was still the boy Octavian, went to his great-uncle Julius's bed and found himself named his heir for no greater price than his complicity.

Rumour. Hearsay. Slanderous lies.

Perhaps. But Severus Snape was inclined to believe it nonetheless.

He and the headmaster met only at night, a habit set over the course of a dozen visits in nearly as many weeks. There was no summons. Severus would Apparate from his London flat to the very edge of Hogwarts' grounds, feeling foolishly safer under the cloak of night, and Filch would always be waiting for him at the gates no matter the hour, lantern in hand, to escort him up to the castle.

Tonight, as always, the tower appeared deserted from the courtyard below, the windows and shades shut against the moonlight. Once admitted, Severus took the winding spellwork staircase alone, Filch's grumbling fading behind him as he was carried up to the landing at the thirteenth floor where a dark oak door waited ajar for him.

It still held some small thrill for him, stepping into the headmaster's private drawing room. He was only three years out of school, even if at times it felt more like thirty, and it seemed to him as though he were out past curfew, trespassing where he had no right to; but he was welcome here. The room was lit low, the faint orange glow gathering the evening shadows warmly as he shut the door behind him. He wondered if even the fabled Order of the Phoenix warranted such intimacy.

He was greeted with a smile and some brandy—a novel change from the usual oolong in the fusty china tea service. It made him smirk when Dumbledore's back was turned. So the headmaster thought him a man. How nice.

The clink of glasses being set on a tray was the only sound as he settled into the wing-backed affair that had likely cost roughly the same as the whole of his childhood home. The headmaster sat down in the chair adjacent, setting a fine crystal tumbler before him.

Severus examined it for a moment and then downed half the brandy in a single gulp, the resultant burn making his throat clench and his eyes water. It was far finer stuff than he was accustomed to, and he felt a little sorry for wasting it, his blood already stinging as the sobriety draught he'd taken prior to his arrival roused to life.

The headmaster refilled his glass, his expression betraying no censure. "Now, Severus, when last we spoke..."

And so it went. Severus swallowed his brandy and spilled his words, relating all he'd learned since their last meeting. There were plans afoot on the continent, envoys on the move to their allies among the giants and werewolves, and so there had been no audience with the Dark Lord in this week past. As a result, the pensieve remained shut away in its cabinet, its waters undisturbed.

That was one reason of many why Severus had chosen tonight to act.

He removed a slim packet of letters from the inner pocket of his cloak, a week's worth of correspondence, and pushed it across the table. The headmaster's hand brushed against his own as he took it, and for a moment they both paused, Severus keenly aware of the old man's gaze upon him. He didn't need to feign his shiver of pleasure. He knew something the great Albus Dumbledore didn't, and that alone was enough to make him hard.

"Professor?" he inquired innocently, letting his own gaze drop, and from the corner of his eye saw the headmaster hurriedly take the bundle. He could still feel the echo of the old man's attention as he drained his glass in a few quick swallows, and the colour that suffused his cheeks at his thoughts could pass for a drunken flush.

Dumbledore always looked at him so, ever since the day he had first made his way back to Hogwarts nearly three months ago. It was a keen look, hungry and considering, and yet almost pathetically helpless underneath it all, the only true hint of a vulnerable underbelly he'd ever glimpsed. Oh, poor man, whose every move was watched as closely as the Minister's in these days, whose reputation could be ruined with a single indiscretion as people buried themselves in shallow gossip to avoid the truth of what was going on all around them. It was a new thing to Severus, being desired, and though he took it with a grain of salt, he appreciated its usefulness nonetheless.

If he were a good person, he supposed that salt would have a bitter aftertaste. It was not a pleasant thing, what he planned to do, but it had its necessity. Even under Dumbledore's not unworthy protection, he would be a fool not to secure some manner of insurance for himself should the old man's Order actually manage to bring down the Dark Lord. But still, it occurred to him that it should give him pause, what he was about to do to his benefactor.

His own flesh and blood...

Dumbledore shook his head belatedly, with the touch of a smile. "Wandering thoughts, Severus. I really should put up a fence someday."

The absent curve to his mouth was one Severus knew well; he had seen it a thousand times on his mother's lips.

He wondered if she might even be proud of him for once, if she could see him now. After all, it was her doing that had brought him here. Summer before sixth year, two weeks in exile to his grandmother's ramshackle house in Kent at his mother's bidding, and little to keep him out from under the disapproving old biddy's nose but digging through the dusty trunks that lined the attic where he'd been lodging.

One book of many, chosen at random. Old black and white photographs from the turn of the century, their subjects nearly motionless with the brittleness of old charms. Barely enough to hold his attention for more than a few minutes until it had been caught by a certain man who didn't seem to belong, standing alongside his maternal great-grandparents. The man bore a striking resemblance to Severus's grandmother, and to both his mother's brothers in fact, though why that should strike him as odd in a family photo album puzzled him even further for several seconds until a stray glance to his book bag brought it all tumbling home.

From there, it had laughingly easy to patch together scraps of story from one half-senile relative or another: his great-grandparents' childless marriage, Great-Grandfather Varius's friendship with that fellow—Wulfric Dumbledore's son, you know, the one who became the schoolteacher—and then his grandmother's unexpected birth eight months after Albus Dumbledore's departure for a trip to the Americas.

He still admired his own self-control. He hadn't been wasteful. The temptation had been maddening then, victory so real that he could positively taste it, the scandal a subtle blade in his hands. But at sixteen, he had already been a better Slytherin than that. He had heeded the hiss in the back of his thoughts and hid away both the knowledge and the photographs until a time when he might truly need them.

Until just the right moment.

A clumsy jerk of his hand 'accidentally' knocked his glass over. To his consternation, it didn't shatter, but it rolled off the table, which was good enough for his purposes. Thinking quickly, his hands shot out to catch the glass just as the headmaster rescued it with a silent spell, and the motion overbalanced him right out of his seat.

He was caught by two firm hands at his shoulder.

"I think we've had enough of this," the headmaster declared, one hand leaving him to put the bottle of brandy aside.

Severus caught the other before it could move, holding it against his shoulder. He felt the old man startle, and he peered up through the strands of hair that had fallen across his face, knowing he likely looked foolish. But harmless. Just a drunk young man, lonely and eager. In vino veritas, a sorry specimen whose shallow thoughts, if examined, would surely be mistaken for the depths.

He waited for a touch to his mind that never came, not even when his fingertips softly stroked the headmaster's hand. Not even when he brushed his lips over his knuckles, his heart beginning to pound despite himself as he let the quiet want and worry of twenty-one years of virginity bleed into his voice. "Please? I know you want to."

Still no invasion—nearly an insult to his efforts—though the steel in the old man's eyes was weapon enough as they searched him carefully. "You flatter me, Severus." His voice was careful, though the faintest amusement played about his mouth. "But might I ask why? I daresay you could have your pick of greener apples."

Oddly, the suspicion was a comfort to him, as intent as he was on his own success. Where else could he have turned, had he not thought that Albus Dumbledore had some chance in hell of defeating the Dark Lord? The old man had never condescended to ask why he'd changed his colours, though he wasn't entirely wrong in smugly assuming it to be on account of the boy—'Harry', those plebeians had gone and named him, with no sense of gravitas.

Of course, it was not the thought of the child's death that had turned him. He owed nothing to James Potter and his line, and what was one more child to the scores he had already seen killed? Rather, what had wriggled into his thoughts like a bothersome insect had been the knowledge that his master would undertake any means necessary to ensure that none would ever supplant him. It had kept him up for many nights, with the slow realisation following that there would be no fabled meritocracy under the Dark Lord's rule, no succession, only servitude.

Albus Dumbledore and his clever ways were Severus's only chance for an inheritance in this world.

So he answered with the truth, or close enough kin; his own peers did little but tire him with their foolishness. "I refuse to bed anyone less intelligent than myself."

Dumbledore paused, then laughed softly, and the heat of the touch to his cheek that followed was an unsettling surprise. The headmaster, in all his vibrancy, was still a man well past one-hundred after all. Severus had expected him, if he had thought of it at all, to be as cold as he himself was. But the old man burned and his touch seemed to smoulder, soft and slow.

Was he meant to be disgusted? He supposed the answer was yes, given that he was counting on the same should the consequences of this night ever come to light. Truth be told, however, it only excited him. His body thrummed, full of secrets. Their eyes were the same shape, and so were their brows, and their mouths.

He imagined swallowing the seed that had made his line and suddenly felt a touch of fever, wondering with vague suspicion if some manner of magic were being worked upon him. A soft whisper of breath ghosted across his cheek as the hand crept down his chest, making his nipples tighten up in expectation. He looked down as the warm fingers turned slow circles over his belly.

Then he struggled to draw breath as—lower still—the subtlest touch had him stirring hungrily.

"Shall I take you to bed, Severus?"

The question made him hesitate when he knew he should be eagerly acquiescing. Not doubt, only a moment of wondering just what it was he heard in the old man's voice. Shame, perhaps? Joy? He might have thought the mystery note to be mockery, if he could fathom a reason for it.

But he nodded mutely and took a minute to stand before he was taken gently by the hand and led to the western door that had never stood open in the many times he had come here. The stairs started up, reminding him of his supposed drunkenness, and he feigned a stumble and was caught and held.

The topmost room was revealed to be warm and as dimly lit by flickering fire as the sitting room below. It gave him a secret excitement to spy the clutter atop the writing desk, a pair of dirty socks on the floor, a hastily made bed with a man-high stack of books beside it. He touched the cool, smooth bedpost, wondering who—if anyone—had ever been brought to this place.

The bed proved luxuriously soft, and Severus immediately sank down as though the brandy had gone to his head, feeling unaccountably wanton as he stretched out, his prick clearly tenting his robes. He only squirmed a little as he was thoughtfully circled, the headmaster oddly leonine in this light.

The old man petted him like a child and kissed his brow. Then he pinned him down tight before Severus could even credit it. His body was seized by a sudden shudder that had him fearing he would spend on the spot. Heavy weight pressed down atop him, suffocating and exhilarating him all at once, and the old man buried his face in the crook of his neck and breathed in deeply, sighing as though it satisfied him to the core. Wet kisses and the soft brush of a beard teased over his throat and jaw and cheeks, and Severus turned his face to catch the next one on his lips.

Not his first kiss at least, but not so very far from it, and never before with hips against his hips and his buttons yielding to a slow caress of magic. He was dimly aware that something was going awry with his plans, and he instinctively moved to cover himself when his drawers were whisked off, only to have his hands irresistibly plucked away. Somehow, when he had imagined this, it wasn't him who was overwhelmed, barely able to grasp what had passed when his robes slithered off him. It wasn't supposed to be him caught breathless when a hand wrapped knowingly around his prick; not him only able to moan as hot whispers haunted him.

"Lovely boy...let me see. Oh, yes...."

He went red to the ears with humiliation as every inch of him was inspected and touched, proclaimed perfect. He shivered as a wet mouth followed the same wayward path, and lay snared, helpless, unable to summon even a drop of magic so long as there were hands on his body.

It was to his own advantage, this terrible pleasure, or so he told himself as he reached for the headmaster's robes, opening buttons by trembling hand, his mouth shaping a soft 'o' as bare skin rubbed up against his own. The man would remember this, should Severus ever have need to reveal the truth to him. He would remember this passion, remember holding down his own great-grandson's wrists and murmuring exultant praise in his ear, frotting like a randy beast against him. He would remember it to his grave, just as surely as Severus would.

When he was taken, it was mercifully from behind, between his thighs, his dignity barely preserved by burying his face in the pillow so that his moans could be muffled. The sobriety draught must have failed, because the room spun and he broke out in a sweat, every thrust seeming to crank the pressure in his loins tighter and tighter. The quiet groans and grunts behind him made him wind his hands in the sheets, and he stared down at them, just inches away from the headmaster's.

They had the same hands. He didn't know how he could have missed it before. The same shape, the same length, the same fingers and knuckles. The very thought of it pulled a hot moan from his chest. Flesh and blood. He was marked far deeper than the Dark Mark could ever brand, marked in his very blood and bones and atoms.

'Father,' he silently breathed, his thoughts a million miles away from the man who had raised him.

And when he finally spent, it was without a touch—on command, an urgent whisper in his ear to come now, come for me, good boy—his face screwing up with the unbelievable pleasure of it, leaving him panting, leaving him aching, leaving him wanting more.

They lay in silence for several minutes after. His body slowly cooled, and his skin goosefleshed piteously until a quilt was settled over him. He slowly became aware that his hair was being stroked, and he nearly batted the annoying touch away before he remembered himself. He had forgotten, for a moment, just why he had done this.

He thought that perhaps the headmaster had fallen asleep when the hand stilled. He could hear deep, even breathing. But then the man spoke: "She was a fine woman, Elpheba. You look something like her, you know. You have her eyes."

Severus froze. He opened his mouth, but no words came.

He knew. The bastard _knew_.

He swiftly weighed the relative merits of bolting out of bed naked versus staying still. Who could reach his wand the quickest, who would need it—would he even make it to the door? He opted for stillness until he could choose his moment, delicately wetting his lips. "I never met her, actually."

His great-grandparents had settled in South Africa before he was born, his great-grandmother passing on not long after he had started at Hogwarts.

"How long have you known?" the headmaster asked with polite curiosity, his hand returning to Severus's hair.

"Since sixth year." His face was still turned towards the wall, and he glanced swiftly to where his robes and wand lay on the floor, the cogs in his mind spinning futilely all the while. "And if I might ask," his own attempt not quite so smooth, his voice as baffled as he felt. "_Why_?"

A hand on his shoulder turned him, and he found the old man gazing down at him with what nearly looked like approval in his eyes.

"If you didn't care to bed anyone less clever than you, then surely I'm allowed to take the same considerations?" The headmaster smiled brightly. "And really, who could match my brilliance but my own?"

Severus felt himself colour absurdly. Was this what had been needed to finally earn praise from the man? He scowled. Was this what he had been expected to do in school—bend over the headmaster's desk for a little justice? And yet, even as he thought it, he knew it was in error. The great Albus Dumbledore would bed his own blood heir, but he would never fuck a student. That would be wrong.

He rolled his eyes at the obvious amusement the man felt at their impasse and came out with it: "I want the Defence position."

The headmaster's smile did not falter. "Alas, I cannot give it to you. But Professor Slughorn, to our great dismay, has handed in his letter of resignation this summer, leaving the posts of Potions Master and Head of Slytherin vacant."

There was no dismay in the old man's voice, but Severus considered the offer carefully nonetheless. It was, as he had hoped for, a promise of sanctuary. No teacher of Hogwarts would ever be allowed to be arrested as a war criminal, and, conversely, the Dark Lord would be slow to fault a devotee who placed himself so close to Albus Dumbledore's ear. There would be next year to seek out the Defence job, or the next.

He nodded and awkwardly offered his hand on the deal, only to find himself kissed instead.

"Clever boy."

And he wondered, as he was gently nudged onto his back and a kiss to his throat made him warm again all over, just where young Octavian would have been had he not gained his great-uncle's affections. Never Augustus. Never a Caesar. Only a boy standing at the edge of a civil war, or else bowed under another man's tyranny, dying nameless and forgotten to the annals of history.

One way or another, he would survive. He felt a touch of hope for the first time in as long as he could remember, and his sigh—if not wholly satisfied—was contented, his eyes shutting in bliss as a hot touch once again made its claim over his body clear.

He had always suspected he got his genius from his mother's side.


End file.
